April 23, 2006

"The Weighty Subject of Being Funny"

As the Chronicle put it last June, "Few could have predicted that the gentle wanderer with the giant schnoz, crown of wavy black hair and old-fashioned mustache would survive more than a few road trips—least of all his creator, Phil Frank. But here it is…the comic strip Farley is still with us."

That was to celebrate the country's only local daily comic strip's 30th anniversary. This month we are privileged to hear firsthand from Phil Frank how humor and weighty subjects can be melded together to fashion such an enduring body of work.

"And what a trip it's been," the Chronicle enthused on. "A rightwing raven named Bruce. Baba Rebop, the only guru to wear a propeller beanie. Alphonse the bear, the diehard Giants fan who runs the Fog City Dumpster restaurant with three other bears. Irene the meter maid and her 7-year-old daughter, Olive...the ghost of Emperor Norton, a true-life San Francisco legend of the mid-19th century, brought back to help with his pet project, the Bay Bridge. Feral cats who took it all off—their flea collars, that is—to make a statement.

"The cast and shenanigans go on and on, topped off, perhaps, by Velma Melmac, a chain-smoking, tattooed woman from Manteca who goes around Asphalt State Park and Yosemite hanging No Pest Strips around campsites and vacuuming the nature trails. The menagerie has grown so huge that Farley himself only appears once in a while."

Phil's prolific pen hasn't stopped there. Last year he launched Elderberries, about a group of feisty people in a low-budget retirement home. The strip runs in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Chronicle, seven days a week. There have been six published collections of his Farley strips, including his latest, Don't Parade On My Reign, which showcases Phil's long-running send up of former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. He also illustrated four guidebooks to National Parks (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Muir Woods) that his wife Susan wrote. And his art can be seen in Road and Track, BayNature and True West magazines.

"A history buff, Phil is active in the local historical societies in Sausalito and in Bolinas, where he and his wife own a farmhouse and cabin," the Chronicle anniversary article continued. "To relax, Frank will work on one of his three antique British cars. Or he will head off to the hills with a metal detector, put on his headphones and muse to the gentle hum of the machine until it picks up a metallic treasure hidden beneath the earth. Frank's studio is filled with these found treasures, from lead soldiers to valuable coins….As for Farley, what will the future bring? Beyond adding a few more gray hairs to his main character, Frank is not quite sure. He likes to have the strip evolve naturally, playing off the news.

"'I just look ahead week by week,' he says. 'That's how 30 years can just sneak up on you.'"